Things on the river are taking a turn for the better, the fall frenzy isn’t to far off! I spent Wednesday on the big river after a 10 day lay off with other commitments keeping me off the water. I spent the day with Cori Bangs, and friend Mark Partlow. Our goal was to focus on areas other than the dam for the day in search of quality fish in good numbers. As most of you know, the bite at the dam has remained fairly decent day in and day out for good numbers of walleye and sauger but we were prepared to sacrifice numbers for some quality fish if we could find them. All though we never found a mother load of fish in one single area we put close to a 3 man limit of fish in the boat pitching jigs to rip rap by days end with half of our catch surpassing the 20” mark. The first walleye pictured here took top honors for big fish of the day topping the digital scale at 9.9lbs
. About as close as a guy can come to that 10lb mark and not succeed…………but I’m not complaining 
! This big eye was caught out of 2’ to 3’ of water.
3 types of baits put fish in the boat for us on this day. Most of our 20” plus fish came on 5”k-grubs with cranks a close second. Ringworms put the hurt on a couple of over 20’s as well, but in our defense, once we caught the big eye pictured above around 9:30am, we spent more time with the k-grubs than the ringies thru out the remainder of the day. Best color overall you ask? That would be hard to say other than the best fish came on firecracker. We noticed that the darker colors seemed to work in our favor much better than the brighter chartreuse colors. 3/16oz black precision jig heads worked best for us. I am not a big stickler on my jig head colors when fishing plastics. On most occasions I opt to fish just plain lead color but on this day the black heads definitely did the trick to get a few more fish in the boat.
Best crank color over all would be hard to determine as well. We caught fish on perch, blue/silver, 1 on fire tiger and a couple on the orange craw. #5 and #7 raps were the top producing cranks. Best depths for most of our fish was in that 2’ to 4’ range. We did get a couple of nice fish deeper as well but most of our catch was very shallow on this day.
The smallmouth were very cooperative as well in a couple different rip rap areas we fished. Cori and Mark are pictured here, and below, with some of those feisty bronze backs. The smallies were very shallow on this day hugging the river banks. We caught smallies on both plastics and cranks. One thing that stood out on all the shoreline areas we fish was that the 2 species were never intermixed 
. If we caught smallies along the stretch we were targeting the walleye were no were to be found and vice versa. I found this odd because this time of the year I have had great success on both in the same areas.
The water clarity on the river since my last adventure 10 days ago has improved dramatically. Visibility was right around 8” for us on Wednesday.
The fall bite is right around the corner but the fish are still a little sluggish. One of the great things about pitching plastics is the bite it self, but most of our bites on this day were very subtle bites. You could tell you got bit, but we had very few “bone-jarring” strikes that most of us plastic fisherman are used to when the fish are really on the chew.
I’ll be back on the river Sunday then it’s off to Mille lacs for 7 straight nights. I still have 2 nights open for the night trolling bite if anyone is interested?
See ya on the water! 
Pictures may be clicked on for larger view.
Dustin Stewart
In-Depth Angling Pro-Staff
IN-Depth Angling Video Productions
My Photo Album
[email protected]
Moving Waters Guide Coalition
Ph.507-421-2346
Cori with a ringworm eye
Wow, that’s the funniest looking ringworm I’ve ever seen!
Sorry buddy!!!
Mark with a smallie he took on a k-grub
.
Cori with a couple of smallies we basically doubled on
.
Cori with another bronzeback
Me with a 21″-22″ eye
Just one more shot of “mama eye”
Sure, you have the power to edit the mistakes out. Awesome fish guy!! I’m hoping to come down on Sunday morning to get me in shape for the Mille Lacs bite. See you Thursday!!
Really nice looking fish Dusty.
Thanks for the report. Thanks, Bill
Awesome pics once again Dustin. Walleyes and smallies, what a combination with size to boot. You ever work the back channel at all this late for walleyes? Seems like a few bigger fish might stay in there for a while till it gets really cold. Anybody try the back channel this time of year either?
We will be coming over to fish Sat. from Green Bay. We have been on a great river trolling bite here on the Fox in the last few weeks. Have you gents done any of that recently? Our trolling bite was in 6′ to 10′ flats and some nice fish were boated. I noticed Dustin’s report had some fish caught in shallow, were those areas trollable?
I plan on fishing near the Dam to start since my partner has never been there but will look to try some different areas later pending action.
Dustin! You’re killing me with those pictures!!!
I your big eye had whiskers…it would be posted on my wall…
The back channel can be very good this time of year. I fished a couple of spots really “quick” on wednesady (just didn’t feel right to me) in the back channel with no success. Did see around 6 boats back there so there is a good chance fish are being caught. Vertical jigging hair and plastics in the deeper holes can be really effective in this area.
FinFanatic,
Trolling will surely put fish in the boat right now. We saw some good fish just casting cranks on Wednesday. I wanted to troll a couple of spots but the pitching bite was good enough to keep me casting all day.
There are so many things a guy can do this time of year and catch fish, but there’s only so much time in a day
Thanks Dustin.
I thought that might be the case. We will be there all day so hopefully I can take my buddy around and show him a few good things.
That was a nice fish by the way.
What was the length? I hauled in a 28” 9# 15oz male last Tuesday on the Fox here in Green Bay. Big hefty male for only 28”
We will be out in a gray Tracker Tundra 20’ with a walk thru, a 150 Merc, and a T8 Yama kicker. If any one wants to give us a shout and say hi feel free. We would be glad to chat fishing on the water.
See you on the river Sat.
That fish was only 28.5″,
to big around to be real long 
Way to go Dustin
Good to see you still got it
I owe ya drinks on that one…….B
Welcome FinFanatic to the site. Great to have you with us. Please feel free to post all you want.
And any info you can share with us on your part of the country would be great so we can all learn about how the fishing is over there. Thanks, Bill
Don’t ya love to fool those big Girls Dustin? I hope to see you down there the 1st of Nov. I am taking a little break from the UP woods to get RECHARGED buddy. Just fishing for enjoyment and some good CPR Fat Ladies with Big EYES!
and maybe a couple of libations at the Liberty!
1st round is on me Tom!
Amen Brother B!
We were on the water 9M to 6PM ended up boating between 40 and 50 fish. Good mix of Sauger and Walleye but only two legal Eyes (16″) Some fish on live bait but most of our fish were on Zips. My buddy had a blast
and we will be back in the Spring for sure and maybe another Fall trip if we can squeeze it in between the Deer hunting. 
Great fish Dustin and thanks for the detailed report. The boy and I just got back from our annual North Dakota duck trip so maybe a Pool 4 walleye trip will make me forget about the duck hunting around here. Good luck on Mil Lacs.
Nice Fish,
Planning on coming there on thursday and would like some information on boat launch and if I need a Minn Lic if I have a Wisconsin Lic. Any help would be great leaving from Appleton Wis area.
Thanks Dean
Dean, there are three ramps in proximity to the dam. One, actually two in Red Wing. One is downtown and one is on the south side of town by the days inn. I wouldn’t recommend the one by the days inn if you’re going to the dam. You have to go through a couple no-wake zones. There is a launch on Hwy 63 about 2-3 miles from Red Wing on North hwy 63. I have ramps here at the resort which are the closest ones to the dam with a bait shop here as well. There is a $7 ramp fee. Directions are located in the link below for the resort.
You do not need to have a MN license if you launch in MN. If you’re from WI, you need a WI license. Good Luck.